Learn to Photograph at the Right Place at the Right Time

How to Recognize the “Right Place, at the Right Time”

When I approach an outdoor subject, I often take a few moments to ask myself these questions.

Is this the right time of day for this image?

Am I facing the subject from the right direction?

Do I have an interesting background?

Is the sky stunning? Boring Blue? Grey and Cloudy?

In addition to these basic questions about composition, light, time, viewpoint, I also respond to:

What camera lens should I be using?

Landscape or Portrait, Horizontal or Vertical camera position?

Do I need a tripod?

This past weekend, at the Bluff Balloon Festival, we had “boring blue skies”. And since the photos were primarily about the color, the location, the sense of place, the blue skies were awesome. Bluff is a town situated near the cliffs and “bluffs” of Comb Ridge, Monument Valley and Valley of the Gods. Bluff is a great place for a variety of subjects including Anasazi Petroglyphs, red rock spires and the annual Balloon Festival

Sunstars and letting go of the “plan”.

As we were “chasing” balloons, in the Valley of the Gods, the sun rose, and although the “plan” was sunrise balloon launch, we grabbed our cameras, and set up photographs capturing the sun, as a sunstar. The buttes, and spires in the distant landscape helped to create a “right place, right time” image. The sun will fool your camera meter, making your image very dark, as the meter tries to create middle gray from a bright subject. I suggest an overexposure of at least 1/3 value (+) to compensate. But try +1/3 or +2/3 and see what you like. Additionally, in order to get the sun to create the lines of a sunstar, I used f22, a small aperture.